The Organization of Elementary Science in the Public Schools

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University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1919
 

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Page 10 - Lead your child out into Nature, teach him on the hilltops and in the valleys. There he will listen better, and the sense of freedom will give him more strength to overcome difficulties. But in these hours of freedom let him be taught by Nature rather than by you. Let him fully realize that she is the real teacher and that you, with your art, do nothing more than walk quietly at her side. Should a bird sing or an insect hum on a leaf, at once stop your talk ; bird and insect are teaching him; you...
Page 26 - Nature study is learning those things in nature that are best worth knowing to the end of doing those things that make life most worth the living.
Page 51 - The child is best prepared for life as an adult by experiencing in • 17 childhood what has meaning to him as a child ; and, further, the child has a right to enjoy his childhood. Because he is a growing animal who must develop so as to live successfully in the grown-up world, nothing should be done to interfere with growth, and everything should be done to further...
Page 30 - Nature that are best worth knowing, to the end of doing those things that make life most worth living." — (HODGE.) 'Nature Study is the culture of the habit of observing and thinking for one's self, and at one's best, without books or helps, in presence of the facts, and in the open air.
Page 9 - Nature would have children be children before being men. If we wish to pervert this order, we shall produce precocious fruits which will have neither maturity nor flavor, and will speedily deteriorate.; we shall have young doctors and old children.
Page 34 - For these reasons, we believe that the solution of the problem is to be found in the adoption of a State income tax.
Page 9 - Nature would have children be children before they are men. If we try to invert this order we shall produce a forced fruit, immature and flavorless, fruit that rots before it can ripen. . . . Childhood has its own ways of thinking, seeing, and feeling.
Page 61 - Such questions as these form the habit of watching minds, and of watching them closely. This habit is the surest road to good teaching, and its formation is the best service that psychology can render to the classroom. Until a teacher has acquired...
Page 10 - Since power for dealing with remoter things comes from power gained in managing things close to us, "the direct sense of reality is formed only in narrow social circles, like those of family life. True human wisdom has for its bedrock an intimate knowledge of the immediate environment and trained capacity for dealing with it. The quality of mind thus engendered is simple and clear-sighted, formed by having to do with uncompromising realities and hence adapted to future situations. It is firm, sensitive...
Page 10 - ... that the passions are approaching, and that the moment they knock at the door your pupil will no longer be attentive save to them. The peaceful epoch of intelligence is so' short, it passes so rapidly, it has so many necessary uses, that it is folly to imagine that it suffices to make a child wise. It is not proposed to teach him the sciences, but to give him a taste for them, and methods for learning them, when this taste shall be better developed. Without doubt this is the fundamental principle...

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